Robbie Birkner’s Blog

HEXONET has been growing! It has been an amazing journey the past couple of years and we are ecstatic to announce that we are now managing over a million domains for clients, resellers and partners. The one million domain milestone is a goal that many registrars strive for and HEXONET reached this goal in mid-April of 2012!

First and Foremost – Thank You:

The executives at HEXONET would like to thank our amazing team in Germany and Canada. They are “HEXONET” and without their efforts and commitment, HEXONET would never have been able to achieve this milestone so quickly.

To our loyal customers, resellers, and partners, we are extremely grateful that you have decided to stand with HEXONET. Without your support and all your constant feedback (both good and bad), we could not be the company we are today. Our promise is to stay humble, continue to listen, and work everyday to be better for you. Again, many thanks.

A Hard Journey to 1 Million Domains:

1. Like any expanding company we have seen growing pains when it came to our employees. Looking back on both the good and the bad, HEXONET has definitely seen the benefit of bringing in new ideas and minds into our organization. New blood in the company exposed areas we were weak and helped us identify where we could improve. Today the team is as talented and as strong as ever. And we are now looking to add even more amazing people to our team. Many lessons learned and many issues overcome.

2. Handling security as we grow has been a challenge, but we are on top of it. Our biggest attack was about a year ago when HEXONET was hit with a massive DDOS. The attack was on a unprecedented scale with over 2 million queries per second on all our servers generating over 80 Gbits of bandwidth. This DDOS even saturated our upstream provider’s datacenter, one of Europe’s largest Internet hubs. We are happy to announce that through proactive measures and procedures no DDOS attacks has affected HEXONET since this last incident.

Many Successes Along the Way:

1. Our reseller and partner network is growing exponentially. Hosting companies, registrar service providers, domain resellers, domainers, and small businesses are now realizing the strength of HEXONET’s advanced and PROVEN technology platform. In our opinion, for TLDs and especially ccTLDs, no other platform or service compares.

More than a decade ago, nearly all companies designed their systems for a handful of dominant TLDs (COM/NET), HEXONET on the contrary believed that eventually hundreds if not thousands of TLDs would be the norm. So today, while others struggle and even hack every new TLD into their in-congruent systems, HEXONET seamlessly adds new TLDs, as our platform was designed to scale from the very beginning. Even more important is the many years of engineering and operational knowledge held by our staff and engineers. We can answer questions about the smallest operational and architectural nuisances for TLDs, a skill that only reveals itself when working with a registry system for years and years.

2. Our Registrar Operations Center platform (RegistrarOC), has also been garnering a lot of interest as well as clients among large corporate customers. These clients with their own accreditations and a large number of domains now realize that there is a huge cost (time and salaries) to update and maintain their own registrar platform. This is where RegistrarOC steps in and not only saves these companies money, but eliminates a huge operational and engineering burden. Interestingly enough, prominent law firms are now becoming ICANN accredited to manage their clients domains. Since law firms are typically not technical, many have turned to RegistrarOC and HEXONET to manage their accreditations.

3. With HEXONET’s platforms gaining popularity, many newTLDs have even come to us asking for help with running a house registrar of their own. As a result, some .BRAND TLDs have committed to running their own house registrar service through 1API (HEXONET’s house registrar) or through utilizing RegistrarOC.
The Journey Continues – What to Expect:

1. A new and more friendly website launching this summer.

2. A newer and easier to use “orderform” to be progressively released throughout the year. With each release new features will be available for clients.

3. More Control Panel enhancements and upgrades. All these updates are from direct feedback and requests from our clients. Some cool new bulk management features are coming!

4. General public “Domain for Sale” listing service on HEXONET’s domain auction platform PremiumSale.com. The site and auction service at PremiumSale.com has received tremendous feedback and now we are going to opening it up for members to auction off their own domains through the platform.

Even though we surpassed the 1 million domain goal for the company, we are not resting. HEXONET continues to work hard for our customers. Again to all our customers, resellers, and partners, thank you for your support and patronage.

In my series of posts on new TLDs, the goal has always been to inform and provide insight, from the perspective of a registrar. With there being so much focus on ICANN and on registry operators during the initial stages of the nTLD process, we felt the voice of the registrar needed to be heard. This is because, from our perspective, success for any new TLD will greatly depend on its support of registrars.

My first post, “Does HEXONET Have Plans to be a REGISTRY Operator for newTLDs?“, was intended to make it clear that as a long standing registrar, our goal is to make any nTLD a success by doing what we have always done, by being a great registrar and nothing more. My second post, “Choosing a Registry Operator for New TLDs“, was done to help prospective registry operators think critically about there registry platform, probably the single biggest decision that will affect their registry today and for years to come. I wanted to give some key insights on registry platforms from our nearly ten years of operational knowledge as a registrar working with these various solutions and technologies.

Making It Easy for Registrars to Start Selling Your nTLD

Today’s post is to take the next step beyond the ICANN process and registry platforms, to start talking about registrars, the gatekeepers to the end customer. For a prospective registry, the biggest questions about registrars is how to get as many of them on board as quickly as possible. Most registrars are very busy selling domains, supporting domains, managing systems, and simply running their business. And for many registrars, engineering resources are tight or non-existent. As a result, for registrars, choosing to implement a nTLD requires a substantial return on investment.

Given that even adding one nTLD for a registrar is a commitment, how will the possibility of three, four or ten nTLD introductions in a given year affect that choice? Registry operators need to be cognizant of possible slow registrar acceptance and implementation. Sounds a bit scary right? The good news is that HEXONET has a solution called RegistrarOC (Registrar Operations Center) that helps registrar’s quickly, easily, and cost-effectively add any new TLD.

Help for Registrars in a Crowded nTLD Marketplace

Potentially hundreds of nTLDs will be available over the next years. Some of them are listed below. A more complete list of declared and potential applicants has been published by Kieren McCarthy, CEO of .NXT.

What if there was a way for registrars to simply add a nTLD to their sales system with little or no technical effort for registry integration, testing and on-going maintenance? In this scenario, registrars can then offer a nTLD as soon it is available, even offer pre-registration! This is exactly how HEXONET’s RegistrarOC solution helps registry operators and registrars.

HEXONET’s RegistrarOC solution takes away all the technical and engineering overhead for registrars. Designed to be plug and play, once a registrar is connected with the RegistrarOC solution, adding a nTLD is as simple as throwing a switch (add an accreditation and go!). We even help and guide new businesses become accredited or help existing registrars quickly add new accreditations.

HEXONET has successfully managed a comprehensive and extensive portfolio of gTLDs and ccTLDs accreditations for nearly a decade. We specialize in inter-operating with all the registry platforms at industry leading reliability and performance. So with RegistrarOC, not only do registrars plug in to the technology, but more importantly, they also plug in to all the operational and engineering expertise garnered by HEXONET over the years.

Ensure you are in compliance with various ICANN requirements, such as RDE (Registrar Data Escrow), WDRP (Whois-Data-Reminder-Policy), …etc.

Ensure your data is always in-sync with the registry – a highly underestimated task by registrars that is potential very expensive future cost

If you are interested in learning more then either visit the “RegistrarOC” solutions page or send us an email at sales@hexonet.net. We would be happy to arrange a quick conference call to explain the product in more detail.

Though HEXONET has no plans to become a Registry Operator ourselves (see recent posting), as an experienced registrar, we have some interesting insights on the operator choices. For those planning on launching a new TLD, this post may be of keen interest.

How HEXONET Would Choose a Registry Operator for a new Top-Level-Domain:

HEXONET would choose a Registry Operator with a proven track record, who clearly has had success managing multiple TLDs. In respect to managing, this means more than 50,000 domains for any one registry. We highly recommend NOT choosing a Registry Operator who is doing this for the first time.

Preferably the Registry Operator would already have experience managing a gTLD (generic Top-Level-Domain) and already implemented many of ICANN’s procedural policies including processes like transactional redemption periods. Not a must-have but a nice-to-have.

Preferably the Registry Operator already has an existing distribution network (depending on the respective TLD and your business plan, this is NOT a MUST)

Choose a Registry Operator with a mature infrastructure so that you can push them on price (economies of scale). A new Registry Operator will have higher capital inputs to recoup and hence likely inflexible on pricing terms.

Choose a Registry Operator who can offer reliable and proven DNS Services. A solid DNS infrastructure is crucial. Make sure the DNS infrastructure is an Anycast solution with a minimum of 6 different DNS cluster installations (preferably 9 cluster locations).

The Registry Operator should have their own in-house registry software that they developed. Operators that purchased their software may not be able to support functional changes you want or may in fact prevent you from developing future services.

Ensure the Registry Operator is known to provide direct and personalized service. With hundreds of new TLDs, some registry operators may simply treat you like a number. Be sure the Registry Operator can accommodate and also time-line new development or registry feature requests for your TLD. Being proactive and having the Registry Operator detail how they will support you can save your TLD from being left in the dust.

The performance of the registry platform is critical for the success of a registry. Slower performing platforms can lead to slow domain searches and potentially even slower response times for more intensive registry transactions. Factor in load considerations also, since the more new TLDs a Registry Operator adds to its platform, the more additional TLDs will impact yours. A good rule of thumb is the 0.3 second mark. If the round trip times for commands take longer than this, be wary.

Choose a Registry Operator who is willing to back up their platform and services with a tight SLA (Service-Level-Agreement).

Lastly, even though price plays an important role, the cheapest option is likely not the best option. Think and plan ahead of the initial launch and proactively define the goals of the TLD for 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10 years. Determine which Registry Operator has the best platform and team to help your TLD achieve its goals. Again, the cheapest solution may only come back to bite your in your backside.

HEXONET easily integrate with following Registry Operators for New TLDs Awarded to Them:

The above list are just a few and does not include all registry operators that will be offering registry services. HEXONET would be able to integrate with any registry. The above registries would simplify work on our end.

In the event, that you are interested in applying for a newTLD and you would like to get in touch with one of the above registries, please reach out to us and we would be more than happy to make an introduction. Applying for your own TLD is a big step with a lot of investment. If you are unsure of the technology, please feel free to contact us and we would happily give you a quote to provide technical guidance.

Since ICANN’s approval of new Top-Level-Domains, HEXONET has been constantly asked the following question – “Does HEXONET have plans to be a registry operator for new Top-Level-Domains?“.

Answer: Why Re-invent the Wheel?

Even though HEXONET is known for engineering expertise and technical excellence throughout the domain industry, being a registry operator is currently not in our plans. This is because HEXONET believes that the current set of registry operators are best suited to service the up and coming new Top-Level-Domains. The leading registry operators have the knowledge, infrastructure, capacity, and most importantly, the experience for any new TLD to achieve success.

HEXONET has achieved our own success by working with registry operators in innovative ways. We continue to run a highly reliable, lightning fast registrar platform that offers a vast selections of TLDs (one of the widest selections industry-wide). Additionally, we plan to fully integrate our powerful Registrar Operations Center (RegistrarOC) solution with all the new Top-Level-Domains.

For HEXONET, success of any TLD, be it new or existing, requires success throughout the deliver chain – registry, registry operator, and registrar. And our commitment is to work with the registry operators so that HEXONET can be one of the best at the registrar level. Our goal has always been to be the best registrar for resellers and to build the best turn-key solutions for registrars (RegistrarOC) so that anyone can quickly add any TLD (new or existing) without the engineering headache and overhead.

Many companies utterly fail by trying to do too much or chase after something new. HEXONET has been on same course for over a decade, which is to be an exceedingly good registrar and domain platform developer. The road ahead for HEXONET is straight and narrow.

While I was in Asia, my colleague and partner Tony Kim moved our office. In the fall of this year we had briefly talked to our landlord about extending our office lease to June of next year. Unfortunately a few days later we received a letter informing us that he will regrettably not be renewing the lease, as he is expanding his lawyers office and he needs the space to add additional lawyers/partners. It was unfortunate as we had felt extremely comfortable in there.

Tony and I basically had two options.

Option1: We would simply stay in the office until June of 2011 and start looking for an office shortly before our lease expires.

Option 2: Start looking immediately. Why make it more difficult for our landlord and stay until June 2011?

We chose option 2, as our landlord had been excellent towards us and if there was a way for us to help him expand and grow his business sooner, then the choice was an obvious one.

Both Tony and I had most likely looked at 10 – 15 possible office space and finally chose one that suited our needs the best and gave HEXONET room to expand. We now have a work space twice the size of our previous office and represents HEXONET in what we do on a daily basis.

The new address is:

HEXONET Services Inc.

Unit 104 – 7455 132nd ST

Surrey, B.C., V3W 1J8

Special thanks to Tony for organizing the move while I was in Asia. Last Thursday all I had to do was drive to the new location and assume work in my new office. Everything had been taken care of and the office was already up and running. Picture of the new office will soon follow. If you are ever in the area, please do stop by our office for a visit.

Once again I am off to my favorite continent, ASIA. Early start to the airport. Unfortunately for us our flight departs in the morning for H.K. If we had flown 2 days earlier we would have had the luxury of departing at 2.00 a.m., definitely a better choice if flying to ASIA on a long haul. Got lucky at check-in and got an exit row seat with ample leg room.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Arrived over an hour late in H.K., after a dreadfully long flight of close to 14 hours. These long hauls economy cabins are definitely getting to me (mental note: must play lottery more often). Due to a delay in getting into H.K. dinner plans were cancelled. All we wanted to do is get the hotel relax, check emails and get some sleep.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Didn’t sleep as well as I had hoped to. It didn’t really matter as this gave me enough time at 4.00 a.m. in the morning to catch up on my emails. We were off to an early start as we needed to catch a train to Guangzhou, China. I was amazed at how well the train station was organized. Very efficient and quick handling of luggage and seat assignment. Two hours later we were already in Guangzhou. No time for a rest, quickly off to our first meeting. A very interesting conversation and I learned a lot about the Chinese market, especially interesting insights into .CN and the additional restrictions imposed by the Chinese government. Overall the meeting was a success and I was happy as this was time well spent. I was hoping for a Starbucks coffee in between, but we were already running late for our next meeting. Finished the second meeting and then off to the hotel, quick shower and then early big family dinner. After dinner, I could hardly move. I constantly heard “Robbie, have some more, you look hungry”. People who know me know that I most certainly do not look hungry.

After reading up on the Libyan government shutting down the popular URL link shortening service called VB.ly. NIC.ly I thought the article “Does Size Matter?” would be interesting for my readers. In addition many registrars advertise ccTLD for URL-Shorteners and I believe this is not the right way of advertising a ccTLD. This article is definitely an eye-opener and worth reading. I hope you enjoy it.

Earlier this month, many of our readers heard about the Libyan government shutting down the popular URL link shortening service called VB.ly. NIC.ly, the official registry operator for the .ly domain space, the official country-code top level domain of Libya, is now scrutinizing anyone using all .ly shortening services. In fact, NIC.ly has gone as far as restricting four character or less .ly registrations to only Libyian nationals. This decision is already having implications for companies that utilize .ly (bit.ly and ow.ly come to mind) in their URL shortening services.

What is a URL Shortener?

URL shorteners are not new. In fact, URL shortening services have been around since 2002, transforming long URLs into short manageable links. Among the most popular url shortening services are Bit.ly and Tinyurl. Twitter and its 140 character message limit has been driving force behind these services in recent years.

Long URLs are cumbersome. With character limits in tweets, status updates and other modes of short-form publishing (micro-blogging), a shortened URL enables users to communicate rather than waste valuable space. Social media and the mobile Internet have made character limits front and center for millions of users.

2. Comprehensive Tracking (aka Click Analytics)

A number of URL shortening services now provide comprehensive tracking features. For example, Google’s URL shortener goo.gl includes a dashboard that shows statistics. These statistics include clicks over time, top traffic referrers, top countries users are visiting from, and even the type of browsers used or the user’s operating system.

3. Potential SEO Benefits

SEO via URL shortening is debatable. However, according to SearchEngineWatch.com , “Goo.gl could work into Google’s ranking algorithm and become a factor in real-time search results, and possibly even regular search results if the shortener proves popular. With all this data on what links are being shared and clicked, Google can see what’s trending, and likely use this as a ranking factor.”

What are Some of the Disadvantages of Using a URL Shortener?

1. Potential Domain Hijacking Threats

There is a possibility that someone could hijack the domain and forward all of the active shortened URLs to a malware.

2. Gone with the Wind?

As seen with the registry operator of .LY, a ccTLD registry can easily change their registration policies or many even go out of business. Additionally, small ccTLD registries many also have under-provisioned DNS systems increasing the likelyhood of DNS look-up failure.

3. Middleman and Reliability

According to Joshua Schachter, founder of the popular bookmarking site Delicious.com, “The extra layer of indirection slows down browsing with additional DNS lookups and server hits. A new and potentially unreliable middleman now sits between the link and its destination. And the long-term archivability of the hyperlink now depends on the health of a third party …”

Innovation Moving Forward…

1. In the future, perhaps registries or registrars will include URL shortening capabilities with every domain. This could be a very powerful tool for branding.

2. ICANN is going to open up the domain name space with the introduction of new gTLDs (estimated 2012). We may see corporations brand thier own TLDs for URL shorteners?

I thought I would post the Blogpost of Tony Kim and his feedback on DNCruise, as this is the first time, that such an event had taken place and it was the first time, that we HEXONET had sponsored in North America.

HEXONET is a proud sponsor of Chef Patrick’s DNCruise. Over the next four days, I will touch upon what I saw and did at DNCruise. Today is about the fantastic networking at the event.

DNCruise – Bon Voyage

For four days, from October 11 – 15, the inaugural sailing of DNCruise, the first ever domain event held on a cruise-liner, took place on the beautiful high seas of the Caribbean. Some attendees of DNCruise came for the networking. Other attendees came for the training. Unexpectedly for everyone though, we walked away having a great deal of fun as well as making resonating friendships.

Networking Over Flip-flops and Long Islands

Going to many different types of technical trade-shows and events for countless number of years, I really found the networking on the DNCruise refreshing and more satisfying. Meeting new people in one’s shorts and a T-shirt forces you to drop your guard. And as a result, introductions were more genuine and friendly. Though we all still carried our titles, a new and more important title for the cruise was emerging – DNCruiser!

As a DNCruiser, networking went beyond just asking someone what they did for a living. The same ritualistic question-and-answer dance that I was accustomed to at trade-shows had to be thrown out the window. One couldn’t simply ask a few questions and then just walk away. Knowing that you will see these individuals many more times over the course of four days, it became appropriate to ask and be prepared to answer deeper questions. In the end, every DNCruiser said DNCruise was by far the best networking event they had ever experienced.

Domain Training and Learning on the High Seas

Tomorrow’s post will be on what I learned at DNCruise and why some of my shipmates say DNCruise was one of the best training events they have ever been to.

To read the entire series of Tony Kim’s updates on DNCruise, please visit blog.hexonet.net.

dot .ME, the ccTLD (country code Top-Level-Domain) of Montenegro, even now, nearly two years after its release, is still as popular as ever, if not more! With the Registry’s second anniversary quickly approaching (second anniversary of “Go Live” on July 16, 2010), HEXONET is not only spotlighting the domain, but will also run a huge promotion towards their reseller channel and make obtaining a .ME even cheaper and better.

Personally I’ve always had an interest in .ME for a couple reasons:

At the very beginning of the Registry, I had the opportunity to advise and assist this TLD through the first few months of its launch in 2008

The individuals running, maintaining and promoting .ME in Montenegro are not only great people with a true passion for this TLD, but are also people who I call friend.

A sensational Success Story! Since July 16, 2008 (“GoLive”) dot ME has been on a tremendous journey of success. Highlights of the past couple of years:

July 16, 2008 .ME officially launches and ushers in a new era of personalization on the web. Minimum registration period is 2 years at an average annual market retail price of 19.00 EUR per Domain/Year

Within two (2) days, .ME has an astonishing 50,000 Domains under management with most registrants coming from the USA, UK, Germany, Canada and China respectively.

August 5, 2008, just two weeks after launch, the registry announced that they had already surpassed 100,000 Domains under Management!

September 2008, .ME auctioned the first set of eleven (11) premium domains during the Traffic Conference in New York, where proceeds amazingly total over 218,000 USD! – “date.me” was the highest sold .ME domain at 70,000 USD!

Keeping the fast pace of changes going at the registry, on October 1, 2008, the Registry reduced the two (2) year minimum registration requirement to one (1) year, for the benefit for all.

January 2009, the second .ME premium domain auction took place at the domain industry’s premier event “DomainFest Global ’09″ – five (5) more premium .ME Domains were auctioned off successfully

May 20, 2009, less than a year after “GoLive”, .ME hits quarter of Million Domains under Management

August 27, 2009, following up on the first highly successful auction with NameJet™, .ME announces the second premium domain auction with NameJet™.

September 9, 2009, WordPress starts using “WP.me” as their standard URL Shortener

January 5, 2010, FaceBook, The World’s Largest Social Network, uses .ME to provide access for its mobile users with “FB.me”

January 26, 2010, Hollywood realizes the value of .ME domains, by branding the upcoming 3D/CGI movie from Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment with the .ME domain Despicable.Me.

Continued success after success after success has been the story of .ME. The dot ME organization has been a model Registry in the way it does press releases, attends key industry events, and most importantly, the way it stays in touch with its registrars.

Why .ME Continues to Stay Hot! .ME is an ideal domain for the following:

Personal use for blogs, family pictures, …etc.

Great for call-to-action domains, such as call.me, date.me, insure.me, …etc.

Ideal for brands to give your brand a more personal touch, basically making your brand more personal

If you are interested in registering a .ME domain, simply go to www.hexonet.net, fill the online sign-up form, load your account and register away! Be sure to take advantage of our .ME Promo starting this April (running through to June 30th) where .ME domains will be going away for less than 5.00 EUR per Domain/Year! Get your personal domain today!